


it's all about who's standing tomorrow

by redandgold



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rivers of London, M/M, Manchester United
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-25 22:55:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13844760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: David doesn't fall into the river so much as onto it.





	it's all about who's standing tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anemoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/gifts).



> HAPP BIRTH SHARON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! KEES UR FURRIE PAWS
> 
> tw: supermancness, also some pr0n cos i owe u
> 
> Football prompts - photo, also trope (in a weird way)
> 
> I ran out of space in the footnotes so I'm stick some stuff up here and also everything got turned into Xs instead. IM SORRY
> 
> [City map of Manchester](https://images.contentful.com/nv7y93idf4jq/2oSV7XvTvKaoAE06AKweme/2bb1969c9afc5d6ae5f10842990299f8/City_Centre_Oct_2017.jpg) \- god there're a lot of rivers aren't there  
> [PEPSI THANKS](https://i.imgur.com/lFGUFsQ.png)

He doesn't quite remember what happens – a misstep, the "watch it!" yowl of a very angry Mancunian, and suddenly he's lying on his back wondering what the hell just happened to him. There're a pair of shoes directly in his field of vision. He looks up and sees a boy all dark and sharp around the edges, glaring at him with the stink eye usually reserved for Liverpool fans and senior citizens.

"Look where you're fucking going," the boy yells. He's skinny and not very tall and he's got dark hair that falls into his eyes in a way that suggests he hasn't been to a barber for years. David's seized by the urge to comb it back for him, just on account of how messy it looks.

A little bit of David wants to yell back. The boy's hands are curled into fists and he's stood like he wants to have a go, like he wants David to try, but in the end David decides not to give him the satisfaction. "I'm sorry," he says instead, offers a bit of an apologetic grin. The boy looks at him suspiciously.

"You're not from around here," he says.

"I am too," David frowns. Jerks his thumb back up the road. "I live there. I'm a footballer."

The boy stares at him. "You're lying."

"Am not." David doesn't even like talking to people, but how rude the boy's being makes him want to prove a point. "I play for Man United."

"Don't believe you."

"Come off it." David trudges over to where his kit bag's been tossed by the force of his fall. The boy follows him, slightly further back, like it's only his determination to make sure he's right that's keeping him hanging around. "Look – I've an ID card and everything."

"Why do footballers need ID cards?" The boy's hand is extended with an almost regal sense of expectation, and quite without knowing why David finds himself handing it over. 

"Well. Um. Security needs to know who I am." 

“Wouldn’t they – “ the boy stops as his eyes skim over the card, and then he begins to laugh. It isn’t an unkind laugh, but it makes David’s hackles rise all the same. “Oh. You’re an academy player.”

“So what?” 

“You don’t play for United.” 

“I will do.” 

Something changes in the boy’s face, then. David doesn’t know what it is; suddenly his features shift from sharp edges to softer lines, his shoulders relax, and what looks like a grin slides across. He looks almost like a child. David realises he's been thinking of the boy as miles older than him.

"Take me there," he says.

 

*

 

His name's Gary. David tries to needle more information out of him than that – last name, where he lives, what he does, anything that gives him a better portrait – but while he's amiable enough about other things, he's stubbornly resistant to any and all questions about himself.  _ You wouldn't understand  _ seems to be his favourite retort, which is pointlessly obscure and mysterious, and for all its use by other angst-filled teenagers doesn't feel like it means the same thing.

David doesn't know why he's still talking to Gary, let alone bringing him to training. It's not something he does usually. If at all. He'd much rather go back to digs and read a book or the like. But there's something about the way Gary reacted to David's naïve yearning to play for United that has dug under his skin and won't go away.

"Have you never been?" he asks, heading for the gate and hoping that no one's going to stop them.

"No," Gary says, following him through. "It's Scholesy's territory, really, and most of the time I don't know whether he wants to kiss me or punch me in the face, so I try not to encourage him."

Joe at the gate checks David's card but doesn't even glance at Gary, which is odd. David opens his mouth to say something about that or who Scholesy is and why it's his territory, but then Gary's brushed right past him and is looking at the pitch down the steps.

His face has changed again. It's bright and open now, the smile is wider and staying, almost serene. He looks completely different to the scowling, surly Manc David first met. Fresh, all of a sudden. David shuffles a little closer and catches a sudden  _ feel  _ of something – a train station, blood red amidst a strip of green and gold, and a blanket of snow in an empty stadium.

It disappears almost as soon as he notices it. He takes a step back. Gary inhales slowly.  

"Gosh," he says. "I can't believe you get to do this every day."

"Don't be so sure," David warns with mock-petulance, sitting down to roll up his socks. "Coach Harrison sees to it that you're proper tired by the end of the first day, and that's just of him yelling at you."

" _ Proper tired _ ," Gary mimics the colloquialism in his Cockney accent, but it's not maliciously done, David doesn't think. "I'd much rather play every day than – "

He shuts up. David leans forward with interest, but then Casp is ambling over already, a lazy kind of smile on his face.

"Who's this," he says amiably, sticking out his hand for Gary to shake. "Your uglier kid brother?" 

There's a noise behind them and David turns around, startled at a water bottle that’s fallen off the desk. When he looks back Gary’s laughing and shaking Casp’s hand. 

“Isn’t that you?” 

Casp grins. “I like him,” he decides, looking at David. “What we’ve really needed is a twat in our lives. Robbie doesn’t count.” He turns back to Gary and jerks his head. “We’re having a kickabout – wanna join? Grab a pair of Becks’s boots, you’ll fit.”

David spends a lot of time watching people. Has always done, ever since he’d been a five-year-old in Leytonstone, where there was nothing to do but look at people in and out of shops all day. He likes to think he’s gotten good at noticing things; a wrong sock, a habit of absently tucking hair behind ears. Now he notices Gary as he runs onto the pitch, strangely self-assured in the way he holds his arms by his side. This isn’t the first time, he thinks. He’s good at it. His positional sense, the way he commits to tackles even in a five-a-side. Like he's taken these steps before. 

"D'you have a team?" he asks when they're towelling down after. 

Gary looks at him like he's stupid. "United," he says. 

David flushes. "I mean. D'you play for one? I reckon you could do all right, if I asked Coach Harrison." 

A grin appears on Gary's face, like he's thinking about something he's long forgotten, and he shakes his head. "I'd better not," he says. "Playing's more for people like you."

And before David can ask what he means, Gary's thanked him for his boots and is walking across the pitch, heading for the line of trees that border the Irwell without looking back.

 

*

 

David doesn't expect to see Gary ever again, but. 

He's headed back to digs after training one day and Gary's sitting right there on a park bench in Green Grosvenor, talking the ear off a grumpy-looking ginger who's got his arms folded across his chest and is squinting at David suspiciously. Gary sees him and gives him a wave, altogether more friendly than he'd been the first time.

"Ay, Becks," he calls. David pauses for a moment, scuffing his shoes in the dirt unsure, then heads over.

"Gary. Doing all right?" 

"Yeah. Me and Scholesy were just talking about Incey. You think he'll leave? This is proper insider information, Scholesy, listen up." 

"I can get my own insider information," the ginger says, and David catches that weird feeling again – this time damp grass, boots thumping, a goal being scored. The same blood red, and David blinks and inches away when he realises that Scholesy's watching him intently, like a hawk.

"Stop that," Gary says sharp. Scholesy turns to look at him and David lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"Stop what?" he asks when he's gotten his voice back. Scholesy shrugs with a sort of laconic amusement and Gary swallows, embarrassed about something. 

"Nothing." He clears his throat. "So – Incey. Why don't you grab a seat, and that? Or better yet – we're off to the snooker club, if you want to come with."

David looks down the road. "I've got curfew," he says, which is true, but also he doesn't want to hang out in a crowded place with someone who looks like he'd be good at killing people and getting away with it.

Weirdly enough, it's Scholesy who waves a dismissive hand in the air. "Don't worry about it," he says. "I'll talk to Annie. I can be pretty convincing when I want to." 

"How did you know – " David starts, but then the two of them have pushed off the bench and are ambling through the park, and even though his brain is screaming at his legs to obey him it's all he can do to follow.

 

*

 

They're not all bad, David declares after his second bottle of Pepsi, and even Scholesy cracks a smile at this. Gary's only coming out of a strop after he lost at the snooker and there's something about it David finds stupidly admirable. The same way he thinks he'll play one day, he supposes. Pointless, bullheaded determination. Hours of hitting balls off the halfway line in the vain hope one of them will go in.

"You'll do it one day," Gary says dismissively, like he knows it's going to happen. David frowns. He can't remember if he'd said it out loud.

"Yeah," Scholesy echoes, pinning him under that strange, thin stare again. "I've a good feeling about you." 

"Just don't forget us when you're rich and famous," Gary says, winks at him. "Come back once in a while and visit, yeah, pretty boy? We'll be here." 

David doesn't know why, but something in his stomach swoops at that. Maybe it's the way Gary's looking at him. Eyes bright and kind, shoulders settled like he's nothing but comfortable. Maybe it's  _ pretty boy _ . Not that he's never been called that before, but it's different coming from him. Fiercer, somehow. Maybe it's the stolidity of  _ we'll be here.  _ It doesn't mean anything, David's sure. People grow up and move away and forget. Nothing lasts forever.

Still; there's a weight to his words, graver than anything else he's said.  _ We'll be here.  _ It's almost oddly comforting. David watches the two of them talk and thinks of a hundred years from now, still dark sharp edges and piercing blue eyes, standing in the Stretford End like they never left.

 

*

 

It happens like a dream. David pulls on his shirt and expects the bench but it isn't, it's "Beckham, you're playing right wing today" in a gruff Scottish accent and then he's on the pitch with no words to describe what comes next. All he can do is read the match reports –  _ United cruise to a 2-1 win over Port Vale, step forward in the Coca-Cola Cup, new faces impressed with surprising maturity, they're off to school in the morning. _

Everything's rehashed and there's nothing worth clipping but for the roster at the end of the article – BECKHAM, his name in tiny little capital letters, under MANCHESTER UNITED. David stares at the print long past bedtime, scarcely daring to touch it for fear of smudging. This is what he's worked five years for. Three words on a fragile piece of paper that no one will probably have read. 

Somehow, stupidly, it's enough.

 

*

 

They lose the league and the cup in the span of a week. David doesn’t cry. 

Gary's milling about at Piccadilly, waiting for him when he gets off the train. "Well," he says, face lax, "at least you had a free ride. Tell you what, Virgin prices are absolutely minging." 

David grins, barely. Doesn't know what to say. Everything feels horribly empty and he's only twenty, really, it shouldn't hurt this much. It isn't the end of the world. 

Gary lifts his chin and bumps foreheads. "Come on, pretty boy," he says.

David feels something warm wash over him. Quiet. Like standing outside Oxford Road on a Sunday morning, waiting for the first trains to come in.  

 

*

 

He gets a better writeup for Wimbledon, which is only fair, Gary says, laughing delightedly at him in the pub. " _ One of the most memorable goals in Premier League history _ ," he reads from the paper, one arm slung around David, the other with a pint of beer that's sloshing around in delight. "I told you. Told you, didn't I?" 

"How'd you even know – " David starts, but it doesn't matter. Eric Cantona gave him a nod and the gaffer had gone  _ what a goal, son _ , into his ear after, and they'd already been two-up but the crowd had gone wild like it was a last-minute goal in a cup final. No one recognises him in the pub now, shy in a corner trying to distance himself from Gary's enthusiastic table-thumping, but it's almost better this way. That they think of him as a player and not a person.

He thought he'd seen Gary's face in the crowd, too, just a blink of it, stood in the first tier of the Stretford End almost swallowed by other faces and names. At first he wasn't sure it was Gary. It looked like him, but infinitely older; not in age but in years, hair cut short, moustache, crease on his forehead, jacket over what looked to be heavy red cotton and white shorts. He'd smiled, winked, and then the scarves in the air cut him out of David's view, Brian McClair jumping onto his back stunned.   

"Did you come to the game," he asks now. Gary laughs.

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world."

"Did I see – "

"Doubt it," Gary says a shade too quick. "Was all the way up in the North Stand, that. Would need proper eyesight to see me. Hey, is that why you still turn out for the youth team?" 

"What?" 

"'Cause you still have super-vision. Get it?" 

"Piss off – "

And that's that. He's David Beckham, just turned twenty-one, and he's scored  _ one of the most memorable goals in Premier League history _ . He drinks his pint and lets the bitter taste of beer fill his mouth. The golden sheen of the pub is startlingly bright.  

 

*

 

Here's another thing. Another thing that boys don't talk about. Something that David realises only later, at home, lying in bed dreaming of Wimbledon. That when he'd asked  _ did you come to the game  _ it wasn't all solving a curiosity. It was also, genuinely, a wish that Gary had come; had come to watch him play, had come to cheer him on. 

He feels his face on fire.

 

*

 

They win the FA Cup and it's sweet, sweeter than anything David's ever had, all the sweeter for it coming against Liverpool. Eric smashes it in and he screams until his voice gives. He's not a vindictive person, but still there's a flash of triumph that comes of climbing the winners' steps, silver medals far below. 

Gary's waiting for him outside and he looks like he's about to burst. "Becks," he yells, grabbing David by the neck and yanking him down into a bear hug. "You did it. Ah. Jesus. We did it. Ninety-five, who? And against fucking Liverpool, did you see their faces? Of course you did, you were there – oh, hell. Gerrard's going to throw a strop. I can't wait." 

"Who's Gerrard," David begins, but Gary isn't listening.

"I'm going to buy you a pint, all right? Come on. I'll buy you two pints if you'd like. Fuck. Feels better than seventy-seven. Can't believe it – "

"Gaz," David says, squirming out of his embrace and looking at him blankly. "What d'you mean seventy-seven?" 

Gary blinks. "The FA Cup," he says, slowly. "We last beat Liverpool in the final in 1977."

"Okay, but we were, like, two years old then," David laughs. "You sound like you were there. Like you remember it."

"Well," Gary says. 

 

*

 

Here's another thing. Another thing that people don't talk about. Magic is real, and people are rivers. And the boy that David might like far too much happens to be one of those.

David knocks on the door of the flat Gary gave, a small place off Castlefield that affords a decent kind of view over the canal. Gary opens the door, grins, waves him in. "Had it for years," he says, guiding David along a winding, dimly-lit corridor, "share it with the ginger brat." There are all kinds of posters on the walls. David recognises a few of them – Robson, Best, Edwards – and doesn't the others, more faded, black-and-white, smaller. Men in the same cotton shirts David remembered seeing in the stadium on Wimbledon day.

Scholesy's sitting in the living room. The curtains are drawn and he looks at David with somewhat more cheerful familiarity than usual, although that's not saying much.

"Have a biscuit," he says, pointing out the tray on the coffee table. David's just reaching out for one when he adds, "eating or drinking anything in this house puts you under no obligation, yadda yadda. Sorry. Almost forgot. Bit stupid, innit?" 

"We, uh, have to do that," Gary says sheepishly. "Otherwise we could make you stay forever." 

"Bet the both of you would like that," Scholesy mumbles through a mouthful of custard creams. Both of them pretend not to hear.

"You're magic," David says. 

"Sit down, will you?" Gary gestures towards the other end of the sofa. "It's a bit much to explain." 

David sits down, although his feet are vibrating with a screaming urge to run away as fast as possible. 

"I'm the River Medlock," Gary says, pointing out the window at a thin strand of water flowing just past Deansgate. "It's a bit of a pointless river. Ends up in him – " he jerks a thumb at Scholesy, who raises his hand in acknowledgement – "Irwell. Obviously he's a lot more big and important."

"Obviously," Scholesy says, his lip curled in amusement or disdain, David can never tell.

"That's about it," Gary shrugs. "We can, uh, do magic, and we don't die. Unless someone rams an iron rod straight through us. I mean, you can't really tell, with Liverpool fans." 

"What kind of magic?" David asks, and then he feels a peculiar sensation in his body, and before he knows it, without making the move to, he's eating a custard cream. There's another flash of the same blood red, the same damp grass.

"Told you to have one," Scholesy says, this time very much amused.

"Random things," Gary says, shooting Scholesy a sharp look. "Things the wizards can do and some things they can't. We have it easier, though. " 

"So what, you're just – " David doesn't even  _ know  _ what kind of question to ask, or what he's supposed to. "Gods?" 

"In a manner of speaking." Gary laughs at David's expression. "Don't look like that, Becks. It's pretty anticlimactic. We're just – representations, I s'pose.  _ Genius Loci.  _ We keep it going. The city. It's a bit hard to explain. It's like a football club."

That makes a little bit more sense. "Are there – those things – for United?" 

"No." Gary frowns. "At least, not that we know of. We kind of take that mantle on. Part of the landscape and all that. People walking down the river towards Old Trafford. It feeds into – us. A glamour we don't have to cast."

Okay. Okay. He's still curious. "I get you," he says, nodding at Scholesy, whose track runs past the stadium, past the Cliff at Lower Broughton Road. That's what Gary'd meant about territory. Why he'd headed off that way all those years ago. The one in all the songs –  _ from the banks of the River Irwell to the shores of Sicily –  _ reflection stark in dark water.

What he doesn't get is the Medlock. Not that he knows anything about geography, but judging from the view it goes the opposite direction to Old Trafford, towards Ashton and Maine Road. City, not United. Blue, not red.

Gary's watching him with a quiet sort of smile. "Look it up," he says. Gestures at a book, which floats towards David like it's dangling on an invisible fishing pole. Trains and snow on grass. Scholesy rolls his eyes. David takes the book out of midair and it falls open;  _ Newton Heath takes its name from Old English and is bounded by brooks and rivers on all four sides – Shooters Brook, Newton Brook, Moston Brook, and the River Medlock.  _

 

*

 

Newton Heath. 

Green and gold.

David wakes up, thinking for a moment that all of yesterday had been some kind of a dream. Gary isn't a – river. There aren't elves and trolls and whatever else lurking the streets of Manchester. Magic doesn't exist. 

It takes a while before he remembers the season’s over; there’s nothing to do, so after a run he gets on a tram and heads for the city centre. Hasn’t been here in a while, really. The buildings vary in shades of dark red and grey. The streets are slick and newly washed. He walks down from Piccadilly Gardens to St Peter’s, horribly aware now of the rivers everywhere. Irwell to his right and Medlock to his left. 

The Manchester Central Library is essentially a rotunda, built in the thirties after the Pantheon, an Italian landmark David’s only seen in passing on European nights. He’s been inside once or twice – almost, he thinks with some vindictiveness, just to subvert the footballers-don’t-read trope – but not up to the fourth floor where the archives are. Here the chairs are wooden, curved, rickety, lined along dimly-lit desks where people are sat looking through dusty old pages.

He sits down. Some people look over at him, raise an eyebrow. He ignores them. The only thing he can see, now, is the man in the stands with the moustache and the cotton shirt.

Newton Heath. Green and gold. A train station.  _ Vestigium _ , Gary had said the other day.  _ Sort of a trace of what you mean, I guess. As a living thing. Part of your personality. You feel it stronger when we use magic. _

In 1878 the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company granted permission to start a football team, subsequently named Newton Heath LYR. Its first home ground was a field close to the railway yard on North Road. They used rudimentary changing facilities at the Three Crowns Pub on Oldham Road and wore green and gold halves, the colours of the company. 

_ How d'you become a river?  _ David asked.  _ We die,  _ Scholesy said, laughed shortly. 

Flagging ticket sales and mounting debts saw the club served a winding-up order in 1902. Team captain Harry Stafford and three other investors came up with two thousand pounds to save the club. The new owners renamed the club Manchester United, and changed the team's colours to red and white.

_ We get on _ , Gary said,  _ all of us, because we're the same kind of people. Scholesy played at the Cliff, same as you. The sixties. Him with a mop top, can you imagine? He thinks someone jealous pushed him into the Irwell the night before his debut. Bet it was just some local drunk, nothing so dramatic.  _

There's a picture of the United team of 1908 – 1909, posing with their own treble, league and cup and shield. Round-collared, red cotton shirts. White shorts. Buttons down the front. Some of them have moustaches. Some have bowler hats. There's the outline of a stadium behind that can't be clearly made out.

Scholesy rolled his eyes.  _ Nothing's as dramatic as yours,  _ he said.  _ Yours?  _ David asked. Gary didn't respond for a moment. Looked down.  _ I don't really remember,  _ he said.  _ I think it must have been during the war. A zeppelin, or something. The North had a couple. They found me in the Medlock. Football had already been cancelled. I was just waiting to go to France. _

On the 25 th of September 1916, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Lincolnshire were bombed by the Zeppelin L21. Its original target was Derby and Nottingham, but it failed to find these. There's a list of casualties included. 

_ How many games did you play?  _ David asked. Gary shrugged.  _ A few. I know we took a picture. We did terribly. Beat Liverpool thanks to a match-fixing scandal, of all things. You can probably find the picture somewhere. _

The game was played out between Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford on 2 April 1915. Liverpool captain Jackie Sheldon led a series of occasions at the Dog and Partridge pub in Manchester to discuss arranging the outcome of the forthcoming encounter. Manchester United won the game 2-0.

The last book on the table is thick, heavy, leatherbound; team photos from every season. David flips the pages till he finds what he’s looking for. It's hard to make out the faces in the faded microfilm print of the team from 1914, pixelated and scratched in places. All of them are sitting or standing with their arms crossed. David's eyes wander down to the names below, L to R, back and front rows. They're only discernible if you squint close. 

His hand hovers over the picture a moment. Then he closes the book and stands up. 

_ What's mine feel like?  _ David asked. Scholesy tilted his head, but Gary was the one who spoke.  _ Like fog,  _ he said. His eyes were bright.  _ Like fog and rain, the kind that makes a pitch too waterlogged to play. And Pepsi. And the inside of an airplane, just about to fly. _

 

*

 

They're at David's this time, now that he's allowed out of digs and has enough money to get his own place; it isn’t huge, but it’s brick and it’s got more than one bedroom. David had cooked dinner. Just him and Gary, and his stomach had turned again. Scholesy said he couldn't make it but both of them know that he's likely cooped up in his room playing FIFA. 

David's sitting on one end of the sofa and Gary's sitting on the other, though he's got his legs stretched out awfully close.  _ Only Fools and Horses  _ is on the telly but as much as David's trying he can't concentrate on Del Boy, which is why he takes a deep breath and opens his stupid mouth.

"So," he says, careful. "Is there anything between you and Scholesy?"

Gary turns and blinks at him. "What?" 

"The first time we met," David mutters, looking down at his fingers and turning red. "You said sometimes he wanted to kiss you." 

Gary pauses a second. "You  _ what _ ?" he chokes, and David realises with some disconcertion that he's trying not to break into a laugh. "Scholesy's my best mate, Becks, and sometimes I snog him when someone's grabbed a last minute goal in the derby, but that's purely – well." He waves a hand in the air. "I snog everyone when that happens."

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah." Gary's turned to look at him and David feels his face burning under the weight of his stare. "Why d'you ask?" 

"Nothing." David rubs his hands together. "What's the best last minute goal you've seen?"

"Sheffield Wednesday," Gary says without hesitation. "Were you at the game?" 

"No." David lifts his head to grin at him. "What was that like?"

"It was." Gary takes a bit of a breath. Sits properly and shifts to sit closer to David, until their shoulders are touching, then reaches out and takes his hand. David feels his stomach swoop much further down than it ought to. Something else shifts inside him; there's a roaring in his ears that isn't all blood, and suddenly the sofa he's sitting on doesn't feel like a sofa so much as a plastic stadium seat. Gary's looking at him without breaking eye contact, without letting go of his hand. David swallows. 

"One-nil down and eighty minutes gone. And it wasn't even – the last game of the season, you know. Everyone forgets that. Thinks it was because of this we won the league, but it was only in April. There were loads more to play. But it was more a question of wanting to win it for ourselves, y'know. Not wanting to depend on Villa bollocking it up."

David blinks and for a moment it's like he's in Old Trafford, except this is the Old Trafford of his childhood; everything's cloaked with a sepia sort of tinge, too fuzzy for him to believe he's really there, but it certainly feels it. The air is crackling with a tension he's not felt before.  _ Come on _ , someone beside him mutters under his breath, too scared to say it out loud.

There's a player in the distance. "Brucey," Gary says, and the red shirt materialises enough for David to make out the face. "Comes up. Eighty-sixth minute, scores a header – crowd goes mad. Absolutely mad. I didn't. Knew we had to get another one. So we wait, and we wait." The clock's stopped at 00:00 now. David still can't see who's with him, but his heart's racing and he's biting his lip. "Then we're forward. The Villa fans are screaming for the game to be over. It's ninety six minutes. Who plays ninety six minutes of injury time? Pally knocks it into the box and – "

Everything seems to slow down, even though David is aware it's happening in real time. There's a deflection. Brucey leaps up. He doesn't flick the ball on the way headers are so often scored; this is a bull charging straight towards a plate of china dangling in the air, giving it no chance. Villa's keeper is stranded. The ball drifts almost leisurely into the net, and then it's a riot of red-white-green-gold, the gaffer racing onto the pitch, the crowd with no faces somehow filling him up with an indescribable joy.

"So I grab the bloke next to me," Gary says, hoarse, "and do this."

David's half-expecting the kiss but Gary's lips send a jolt through him anyway. It isn’t – it isn’t special, as a kiss, it isn’t anything David’s not had before. It's who he's kissing. Gary the United player, Gary the river god, Gary his best friend since he'd been fifteen. They haven't left the stadium. Somehow that seems important. 

He leans back into the sofa. Gary's breath is warm on his face, over him. His cheeks are flushed and he looks like he wants to say something but nothing's coming out of his slightly-parted lips. 

"You and the bloke must've become really good friends," David says. Gary blinks, puzzled for a moment, and then bursts out into a cackle.

His laugh is one of the nicest things about him, David thinks stupidly. 

Gary's kissing him again. Feverish and urgent. His hands are running up David's shirt and David's swung an arm around him, dragging him closer. His other hand reaches down to Gary's jeans, palms across it experimentally, and Gary makes a noise David isn't even sure what to call. He can feel himself getting hard in his slim trousers, thinks God he shouldn't have dressed up so nicely tonight.

"Gaz – " the word comes out of his throat. All he can hear now is a crowd roaring, or maybe it's a river bursting past a dam. Loud and full of fury, the same way Gary's digging his fingers into his back, nosing down his stomach to the waistband of his briefs. It's almost embarrassing how hard he's gotten this quick. Gary unbuttons his trousers with an almost curated care and he bites off a moan when Gary's cold fingers wrap around him, freezing because it's Manchester and it's cold even in the summer. 

"Becks," Gary replies, earnestly, dips his head down to lick the tip of his cock. Fuck, David wants to yell. "Hey. Becks. Look at me. Look at me."

David looks at him. Gary's cheeks are flushed and he's panting and David doesn't know where he is, what they're doing. He closes his eyes. Aches as Gary goes down on him, over and over, digs his fingers into the fabric.  _ Ah, God _ , he hears himself say once, hears Gary pull off just to reply  _ that's right _ , feels like he might kill himself wanting to laugh.

When he comes it's like his entire body crumples up and flattens out all in one breath. There’s a moment where he can’t even feel his legs.  

He opens his eyes to see Gary leaning back, jeans undone and hand around his own dick. Something shivers straight through his spine. "Gaz," he whispers again, voice haggard. Gary looks oddly beautiful this way, hair mussed up and lips pink. David rocks forward on his knees and presses their bodies together. Presses his lips to Gary’s. Stays.

 

*

 

“Good morning,” Scholesy chirps, sitting at the table with a steaming mug of coffee in his hands as David shuffles blearily into the kitchen. “Enjoy yourself last night?”

“Why are you in my house,” David groans, making a grab for the jug of water on the counter. At least Scholesy’s put the coffee beans back the right way with the logo facing out, which he appreciates.

“I’m an all-powerful immortal spirit of the most important river in Manchester who can unlock doors using only my mind,” Scholesy scoffs. “Also Gaz let me in.”

_ Gaz.  _ David feels his face burn again. Scholesy notices and grins at him, somewhat malevolently. 

“He’s gone out for a run. I think he feels vaguely threatened by the superior state of your, ah – how do the Americans put it these days – rockin’ bod.”

David throws his glass of water at Scholesy. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t reach its destination.

 

*

 

There’s a buzz to the beginning of the season that David’s always liked. People opening doors and peering down the streets again, getting mothballed kits out for the nine-month airing. He scores twice in four games and by September they’re right up there, hands firm on the wheel. 

“This year, lads,” the gaffer tells them. “The treble.”

He doesn’t always see Gary in the stadium, but he knows he’s there somewhere. Away at Wimbledon where this time he gets two. In Liverpool where they run out comfortable. Home where they thrash Sheffield six-one, where he always is in the Stretford End beaming down. 

It’s comfortable. He doesn’t know how else to say it. Coming home to Gary burning pasta in the pan, going over to have a pint until Scholesy’s so drunk he doesn’t stop talking. Introducing his teammates to the lads, although never in  _ that  _ way, Giggsy ruffling Scholesy’s hair so much they almost get into a fistfight. Gary laughing and laughing. 

It’s comfortable and that’s why they fuck up. It’s comfortable and that’s why overnight their lead goes from twelve points to three, to none, and suddenly they’re in second and the league is over in a month.

At night Gary holds his hand but it doesn’t help. “Can’t you make Arsenal lose?” David asks, almost begging and hating himself for it. 

“I’m not going to fight the Thames, Becks,” Gary laughs. “Either of them.”

David can’t even be bothered to ask what he means. He scores once in April and that’s it; the day before they play Leeds news filters through from London that Arsenal have won. The mood is. Solemn, almost. Old Trafford rises to the affair with their traditional rivals, baying for blood and getting it, but there’s something far more sombre about the crowd. 

It's like applauding a gladiator, David says later. Scholesy rolls his eyes and tells him not to be so dramatic, but even then there's an echo to his words, and that night they say that the Irwell sinks into its riverbed. 

 

*

 

That he goes to the World Cup isn't a surprise. He's been playing well, and no one whips free kicks in like he does. It's his first cup and it's – overwhelming. Lights and sound,  _ come on England.  _ They even have a drum, he thinks wonderingly, like he's never heard it before.

That England get knocked out isn't a surprise. It's what they're terribly good at, and that the Lightning Seeds had to change the number in the song would be sad if it wasn't laughable. And it's Argentina. It's a strong team. It isn't their fault.

Here's another thing – 

 

*

 

"It's a bullshit article," Gary says. They're in the rivers' flat, draped over the sofa in varying degrees of indignation. "The media circus is bullshit, as a rule. You know that." 

"I know," David says. He hasn't told them that he spent the whole flight by himself, that he'd sobbed buckets when he'd stepped off the plane and into his father's arms. It feels like an admission of guilt in and of itself.

"It shouldn't have gone to penalties regardless," Scholesy says. "Everyone knows we're shite at them. They don’t need the chance." 

"I know." 

They're burning effigies of him in the streets.

"We were watching the game and you were great." 

"Uh-huh."

He'll have to leave United. Play abroad, somewhere, till they forget him. 

"Gaz is leaving you because you're a loser."

"Okay." 

Gary and Scholesy exchange a look. "Look," says Scholesy, "if you aren't going to listen, don't make me talk." 

David lifts his head and grins at them. "Sorry, lads. I'll be fine." 

Of course he won't be. He wants to crumple up and return to dust. Manchester won't want an England reject. He isn't even from here, Christ. He doesn't even belong.

"The fuck you will." Gary stands up. "Come on. Let's take a walk."

 

*

 

It's forty minutes to Old Trafford, most of it along the Irwell. Turning onto Orsdall and down the Trafford Road. Gary takes the lead and David falls in slightly behind him, arms brushing every so often. 

You can see it before you cross the bridge. At night it's darker, lit up dim by rows of lights, but the cantilevers on the roof are unmistakable. Gary would've been one of the first to play in the stadium, built in 1910 and opened with a loss to Liverpool. There's something important about that, too.

"I don't think we're allowed in at night," David says. "Or off season."

Gary snorts. "I'm a river, Becks." 

He opens the doors like they've never been locked. David follows, and the gates close behind him. Up the stairs. He hasn't climbed these for years. Gary finds his hand and takes it and he feels in his bones the same way he felt as a five year old with his father. 

They're in the Stretford End, of course. Looking down. Gary tilts his head and the stadium suddenly seems smaller. No roof above their heads. Heavy industrial floodlights appear in the corners, dark silhouettes against the sky. Brick walls. Old goalposts, not the kind suspended in the air but the ones you can carry around. A flagpole where the front of the stadium ought to be. The flag is at half mast. 

"Nineteen fifty eight," says Gary.

The lights turn on. They aren't very good; the corners are the only parts illuminated under a harsh glare, everything else nestled in a twilight darkness. There's a man on the field. He's wearing a red shirt. It's got a white collar that's shaped in a V and there's a number on his back but no name. He looks up. Grins. Waves. 

"I come here sometimes." Gary isn't speaking to David. His  _ vestigium  _ is there again, and suddenly it makes sense. The snow in the stadium. Only it isn't a stadium, it's an empty field; only it isn't Manchester, but another city that starts the same way.

"He was the Irwell. Before Scholesy. It'd been dead for some time, because of the Revolution and all that, then this boy from Dudley comes along. I don't know how it happened. But it fit, you know. The City and what Sir Matt was doing and things looking up after the war."

David knows this too. Four years of Maine Road, and he can smell the acrid scent of gunpowder in the air. The man on the pitch continues to juggle the ball. He's better than anyone David's ever seen, just from the way he touches the ball with the inside of his foot.

"I went to see him, when they brought him back." Gary clears his throat. "When they brought them back. The fact that he'd stayed alive for so long must've taken all the magic in him. Iron kills us, you know."

"Why are you showing me this?" David asks. His voice sounds like it's going to break. Every part of him feels like it's going to break. He's older than the man on the grass below.

The scene shifts. It's daytime, suddenly. People are piling in. All of them with scarves, old-style rattles, some clutching at programmes open to a page with no names. David sees the title of one:  _ United will go on  _ in thick, black letters.

Duncan waves again, then new players are on the pitch. Still in the same shirt, greeted by the same roar. Hands in the air thrust in every direction till it almost blots out David's view. Women crying till they're laughing. We'll never die, we'll never die. Old Trafford hums, buzzes, is everything a stadium ought to be and more.

Gary is looking at him, eyes glinting in the sun. "You see," he says. "We'll be here."

His voice is almost kind. 

 

*

 

It's quiet when he wakes up. Gary's still asleep next to him, sprawled all over, nose buried in the pillow. David walks over to the window and lifts the pane. The first thing you see in Manchester is brick - in the bridges, in the terrace houses, in buildings left over from the revolution. David can see the old railway warehouse and Castlefield Chapel that rises just outside, the same blocky facade and chipped cement. Some people say all the brick is ugly. Industrial. Maybe, he thinks. But it's red.

 

*

 

What makes a city?

A million people, eating at the same places. Sleeping along the same roads. The sun rising at the same time, the trams grinding to life. Mortar and cobblestones. Disused cotton mills and cathedrals.

In all of that, somewhere, a football club. Something that wholly and irrevocably belongs without having to try. With a heart that beats the same rhythm as the rivers that flow through it.

"This year, lads," the gaffer tells them. "The treble." 

David digs his fingers into his palm as he walks into the grounds. First game of the season.  _ Manchester United v. Leicester City, 1998/99.  _ Three hours before kickoff and people are already milling about, huddled in groups talking, bursting into snatches of song. The hubbub grows into a roar that fills his ears; blood or crowd or rushing of water. 

He tilts his head back and looks at the letters emblazoned against the blue glass. A hundred years ago a railroad worker stood where he's standing, knocking a ball about. A hundred years later someone else will be.

He sees what he's looking for without really having to try, the red cotton shirt and the briefest of smiles.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> \- Title: from It's All About Soul by Billy JOE., from the album THE RIVER OF DREAMS. BA DUM TSH! IT'S A DOUBLE PUN BC 'IT'S ALL ABOUT BELIEF' MANCSONG OF '99  
> \- Becks used to live on Lower Broughton Road w Annie and Tommy Kay  
> \- [The Cliff](https://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/106741125.jpg)'s nonexistent security  
> \- Casp - Chris Casper  
> \- Green Grosvenor Park is on Lower Broughton Road  
> \- [Becks' debut](http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football-coca-cola-cup-scholes-in-class-apart-for-united-1450440.html)  
> \- [Becks' Wimbledon goal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlYzKolyzHQ)  
> \- [1996 FA Cup](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y8d-JeRAMY)  
> \- Yes, I trawled through all our finals to check when we [last beat Liverpool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_FA_Cup_Final)  
> \- [Castlefield](http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/WATERWAYS/waterwaysmap.jpg) is where the Irwell (8) and Medlock (6) meet  
> \- [Irwell chant](https://www.fanchants.com/football-songs/manchester_united-chants/fight-fight-fight-united-fc/)  
> \- OKAY. The Medlock doesn't flow past Maine Road which is where City played at the time. BUT IT DOES flow past the Etihad, so there.  
> \- [Newton Heath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Heath)  
> \- [Central Library](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Central_Library) and [reading room](https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/05/af/ec/74/the-best-reading-room.jpg)  
> \- History of Manchester/United - [x](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Manchester_United_F.C._\(1878%E2%80%931945\)#Early_years:_1878%E2%80%9387) [x](http://www.unitedrant.co.uk/tag/newton-heath/) [x](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Manchester_United_F.C..html) [x](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cliff_\(training_ground\)#cite_note-1) [x](http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Manchester_United/Manchester_United.htm) [x](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Manchester_United_1908-09.jpg/1024px-Manchester_United_1908-09.jpg) [x](https://thesefootballtimes.co/2015/01/10/the-great-betting-scandal-of-1915/) [x](https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2495/3720946120_e58ab242fb_b.jpg)  
> \- S/N: Manchester was never bombed during WWI, only WWII, but. OH WELL. [x](http://www.lancashireatwar.co.uk/world-war-one-zepelin-attack/4575771599) [x](http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/topic/230197-manchester-bombed-19-20-october-1917/) [x](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_61_\(L_21\))  
> \- [Becks' house](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2575576/From-three-bedroom-house-Manchester-30million-Kensington-mansion-Beckingham-Palace-See-David-Beckham-scaled-property-ladder-one-homes-goes-hammer.html) sorry it's the Mail  
> \- [1993 Sheffield Wednesday game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsmyTAs9C9k)  
> \- OK I KNOW I SKIPPED A SEASON, I CAN'T DO MATHS, SUE ME!!! [1997/98](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997%E2%80%9398_Manchester_United_F.C._season)  
> \- [The bombing](http://www.manutd.com/~/media/9BD1382B8D754F38A3C60A7053E1524F.ashx?mw=500) [ \- OT in 1958: ](https://twitter.com/realtimewwii/status/311503005449076737)[x](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/694xKQXCN0M/maxresdefault.jpg) [x](https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.232817156.9864/flat,800x800,070,f.u1.jpg)  
> \- Duncan Edwards died two weeks after the crash, at 21.  
> \- Sheffield Weds Game: [x](https://www.swfc.co.uk/siteassets/image/random-things/man-u2-58.jpg) [x](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/3114/2893719/1215-2014115172944_540x360.jpg) [x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNUTqXmCCtM)  
> \- [Warehouse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlefield) and [Chapel](https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/view-of-castlefield-area-in-manchester-picture-id530909457?s=170667a)  
> \- [Leicester game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvj-QoFN-q0) \- Becks scores the equaliser
> 
> \- For Shaz, who holds my hand (or vores my paws) all the time and is the best buttepatter and cheerleader in the whole world: I'm so glad! we read each other's Bevilles and I luff u!!!! KEES U


End file.
